


let's not forget ourselves, good friend

by dankomanuel (somethingradiates)



Category: Game Grumps
Genre: Background Arin/Suzy, Infidelity, M/M, Unrequited Barry/Dan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-13
Updated: 2017-09-13
Packaged: 2018-12-27 14:00:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12082488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somethingradiates/pseuds/dankomanuel
Summary: Barry overhears something he shouldn't.





	let's not forget ourselves, good friend

**Author's Note:**

> This is inspired by pringlesaremydivision's excellent (and super NSFW) [Dig Deeper](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4988038), but, like. The sad version, I guess, where there's zero jacking off and more confrontations.

There’s usually music playing by the time Dan gets home. 

Barry cooks, most of the time, and Dan cleans, and it works out - they’re picky in their own ways, and by now they’ve both wound themselves around the other person’s particulars. Barry more or less only cooks things that can be reheated at three in the morning after a dinner full of Dan picking birdlike at his plate, and Dan’s worked himself up from a big clean every weekend to a nightly tidy-up before bed. 

They work well together, and not just at work. They _know_ each other. 

Barry thought so, at least. 

There’s usually music playing, but tonight it’s quiet. He had tried to distract himself, knew it would be a couple of hours before Dan was home ( _Can we do stir fry tomorrow?_ he had texted earlier, _at the office til late, will feed self, promise,_ and it’s been almost a year since Barry told him, uncharacteristically seriously, that he needed to fucking _eat_ like a _person_ , but Dan still tags shit like that with _promise_ like he thinks Barry won’t believe him), but he’d opened his laptop and it had been on the YouTube homepage, and one of Suzy’s new videos had been right at the top, and. 

He’d read, he decided, and he’d stared at one page for twenty minutes before he’d given up altogether. The inside of his head feels like a dog chasing its own tail, and sometimes it even catches it - he brushes up against thoughts that _sting_ and then has to pull back so hard it almost feels physical. 

The living room light is on, but Dan still quiets as soon as he re-locks the door behind him, sets his keys down gently on the end table next to it - he probably thinks Barry nodded off on the couch. It makes Barry clear his throat, say “hey” before Dan can get further inside and see him sitting there by himself like a creep. Dan catches him like that sometimes, bundled up on the couch with his headphones on, knee-deep in whatever's on Netflix or Hulu. 

“Oh,” Dan says, “shit, hey, what’s up?” He’s cheerful, doesn’t seem tired. He drops his bag on the floor next to the couch, drops himself down on the other end in a tangle of limbs and hair, and Barry stares at him just long enough to realize what he’s looking for ( _fuck,_ Dan says in his head, breathless and tight, _don’t, don’t, you’ll leave a mark_ , and Arin makes a noise Barry’s never heard from him) before he’s staring at his own hands again. 

There are different avenues he can take, here, is the thing. He can forget about it, he thinks, he can say _ah, nothing - how’d the session go?_ and leave it be. Or he can make small talk until Dan sits down, work himself up to it. He can do a lot of things, say a lot of things. He could have some finesse. 

But he doesn’t. “What are you doing with Arin, man?” 

Dan blinks, and for just a second, Dan slips. There’s something naked and open in his face in that heartbeat span of time, and then it’s gone, covered up with bemusement: “Recording, dude! We’re like, six hours into Morrowind and it’s _so much better_ when I’m not stoned outta my fucking gourd. You’re gonna shit when you see some of this.” 

It’s almost insulting. If Barry weren’t so drained, he thinks he’d be pissed. 

“You left the mics on,” he says, and swallows, and there’s - that’s that. There’s no going backwards now. “Last week. Thursday night.” 

Thursday night, when they'd been the only ones left in the building - 

(Suzy had been in the recording, earlier in the night. She'd popped in between sessions, but the mics were still live, and Barry'd heard her tell Arin that she was heading out, heard him lean away from the mic to kiss her. Heard Dan say _where's mine, Suze?_ and laugh.)

\- and left Barry with an hour and a half of the absolute last kind of shit they should commit to audio. They took their time, and Barry should have skipped it once he realized what it was, but - he hadn't been able to, had even put his cursor over the feed to move it forward, but it was like his muscles seized when he needed to click, and he'd never thought he'd ever be the kind of guy that would be able to listen to his best friends fuck, but here he is, being that guy. He'd been angry, at first - and then a little sick, and then a little numb, and now _this_ , whatever this is. It feels like anxiety is eating a hole through his guts, mostly, but there's a kind of dull, disbelieving fury, too. 

The mask slips again, and this time it doesn’t come back. Dan blinks at him again, opens his mouth like he’s going to say something, doesn’t seem to be able to. “Oh,” he says finally, and it’s surprisingly small, but - to his credit - he doesn’t look away when Barry looks at him. Barry doesn’t think he’d be able to do the same if he were in Dan’s position. 

“Dan,” he says, and hates how - almost _plaintive_ he sounds. He and Dan are friends, are just friends, have only ever been just friends, but. “Jesus, dude. Suzy’s our friend. Suzy’s _your_ friend.” 

“She knows,” Dan says immediately. “She’s known for a while, dude," and Barry thinks: _oh_ , and Barry thinks: _thank God,_ but then Dan doesn't stop. "We just - we didn't wanna tell people, man, I'm sorry, if we told you we'd have to tell Ross and Ross would tell Holly and it would just - it'd be a _thing_ , you know?" 

Dan rambles when he lies, is all. He's the exact opposite of Arin, who, despite acting, can't lie his way out of a paper bag; Arin clams up and gets surly, wears _I'm a lying liar who tells lies_ on his forehead in big red Sharpie. Dan rambles and gives too many plausible details, and there's always a little note of franticness in his voice while he does, and Barry fucking hates himself for _knowing_. Hates Dan for making sure he knows. Hates Dan for putting himself in this fucking spot to even start with, for not being able to flick a switch on their stupid microphones. 

"Oh," he says, instead of any of that. "Okay, man. I just, uh - I wanted to make sure. You know?" 

"Yeah," Dan says. "Of course, dude. Suze is our friend! We gotta look out for each other."

When Barry looks at him, there's something terrible and tight around his eyes, strained past his smile. They both know, Barry thinks, and it hits him like a fist, they both know what the other is thinking. _Dan,_ he thinks, _Danny, tell me the truth,_ but doesn't say it. 

"If you ever," he starts, falters. _Get bored,_ his mind supplies helpfully, _get tired of hiding_. "Wanna talk about stuff. I'll listen."

"Yeah," Dan says, with too much enthusiasm and too little sincerity. "Yeah, dude, of course. You're my guy."

"You know I am," Barry says, and wants to say _why do you think I didn't call Suzy before I ever talked to you,_ or _otherwise I wouldn't play along with your bullshit,_ or any number of small honest cruelties. Instead, he shifts a little closer, doesn't lean on the arm of the couch so hard; Dan, like an answer to a question, shifts towards him, too, uncurls his knees to tilt his long body in Barry's direction. 

Barry pretends he can't smell Arin's cologne when Danny shifts, breathes in through his mouth. "The new _Planet Earth_ is on Netflix, if you're gonna be up for a while."

"Fuck yeah I am," Dan says, and folds himself so that his head can rest on Barry's shoulder when he gets tired - like he will soon, like he always does. Barry knows that. "Ocean episode first."

"Ocean episode first," Barry agrees, and tries not to listen to Dan's heartbeat. 


End file.
